How to Implement and Use a Parcelable Class in Android: Part 2

Welcome to Part 2!

Hi! In this article we will use the parcelable class we created in Part 1 to pass an object from the MainActivity to the DetailsActivity. Let’s begin!

💡 Tips: This is the second article in this series on How to Implement a Parcelable Class. This is Part 1:

How to Implement and Use a Parcelable Class in Android: Part 1

Demo App

This is the App we are going to build, it has an extremely simple UI to focus on the aspects of the parcelable object.

• In the MainActivity we create an instance of House.
• If we click on the Launch Details Button the parcelable object is passed to to the DetailsActivity.
• The DetailsActivity is launched and the data for the object is read and displayed.

Passing a Parcelable Object between Activities

Creating an Instance of the Parcelable object

For this demo I created an instance of House in the onCreate method:

house1  = new House(100000, "Los Angeles", true, previousOwnersArray);

Launching Details Activity

In MainActivity you need to launch DetailsActivity by passing the instance of the parcelable object as an extra.

public void launchDetailsActivity(House house) {
    Intent intent = new Intent(this, DetailsActivity.class);
    intent.putExtra(HOUSE_KEY, house);
    startActivity(intent);
}

⚠️ Note: Notice that I used HOUSE_KEY as the key for the extra that contains the parcelable object. This is a string variable that I previously defined in the class and you need to use this same string to read the object in the destination Activity.

Final Code

This is the final code for MainActivity:

Reading the Object in Details Activity

To read the object in the destination Activity and save it to a variable we use this syntax.

house = getIntent().getParcelableExtra(HOUSE_KEY);

💡 Tips: Notice that HOUSE_KEY is the same key we used to send the extra from MainActivity.

After this, we can use the variable house in our DetailsActivity and access its getters and setters.

This is the final code for DetailsActivity :

👏 I really hope you’ve found this series helpful. Your claps are really appreciated to help others find this article 😃 . Thank you very much in advance!